A little while ago, I was listening to some music from the 80’s. Being a teen in the 80’s, it’s often my go to genre. I was really enjoying the songs & a thought crossed my mind. Most people who listen to their childhood music are transported back to happy days of their youth. I’m not. My childhood wasn’t happy. Even so, I still love the music of the era. As I wondered why, & didn’t even have a chance to ask God why, He gave me the answer. My taste in music was the first thing that was just mine, that my narcissistic mother couldn’t ruin for me.

My mother likes 50’s music & country music by the Statler Brothers, Oak Ridge Boys & similar sounding artists. My father is mostly into outlaw type country- Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt. Neither likes 80’s music. When I first got into it, my mother harshly criticized it, yet she didn’t spoil my love of it in spite of her valiant efforts.

She tried to squelch my love of other things over the years too- my taste in cars, other types of music I like (such as Southern rock & metal/hard rock), my love of feminine clothing & perfumes, knitting, scary movies & books. I’m positive her motivation was to make me dislike these things & replace them with things she likes or approves of. (Narcissists love to change people into what they think they should be, rather than allowing people to be individuals.) It hasn’t worked, however, & these things all bring me a great deal of joy, even when she insults them or me for liking them.

When you’ve experienced narcissistic abuse, holding onto something that the narcissist couldn’t ruin for you or take away from you is precious! It makes you feel strong. In spite of every hateful thing she tried, she couldn’t take this from me! There was one thing she couldn’t destroy about me! YAY ME!!

Do you have something that is just yours, that your narcissistic mother couldn’t take from you? What is it? Whatever it is, I urge you to celebrate it! Enjoy it to the max! Relish in the fact she couldn’t take it from you no matter what. Be proud of yourself for having the fortitude to hang onto that thing!

If you can’t think of anything, that is ok too! Find something! Try something new- a new hobby, a new type of tea, listen to a different genre of music. You’ll find something that is so special to you, that even the meanest narcissistic mother can’t take away, & you will thoroughly enjoy it.

26 responses to “Do You Have Something That Is Just Yours?”

The things that have always been interesting to me were ridiculed or ignored by my NM and her enablers. In thinking about this today I realized an essential difference between them and me: I supported, encouraged, and lauded their interests and goals while they deprecated mine. I didn’t share those interests but I was respectful of them. That is something my NM and FOO never did for me.

I’m sorry, Suzanne. That is so hurtful! My mother was the same way. Until she stopped speaking to me, she mocked & criticized my taste in music, books, cars, movies, etc. I don’t think narcissists have it in them to want to support another person’s tastes if they’re different from the narcissist’s. Much better to them to try to change the other person into their “mini me”, make them think like the narcissist. What better way to do that than to criticize the other person’s likes until they discard their likes in favor of the narcissist’s? They really are jerks..

This brought back a lot of stuff I’d forgot, but I’m really glad about that.

I couldn’t begin to describe it (but y’all knew that). Let’s just say that anything SHE didn’t like or couldn’t / wouldn’t do got itself AND me disparaged, ridiculed, and shamed.

I was regularly forced to eat more than I wanted because, she’d snap, “THAT’S not enough for ME!”

(Cue “Twilight Zone” theme.)

I was talented-enough an artist to win second prize in a borough-wide art contest while in the third grade and to merit one of a very-limited number of spots at NYC’s High School of Art & Design, yet to her, it was “scribbling.”

She’d get on the phone with Grandma:

“Mother,” she’d hiss, “She’s SCRIBBLING again!”

Great pains were taken to keep me from drawing.

DRAWING.

I am fifty-eight years old and STILL gagging with rage over this and the countless other times and ways in which my soul was raped while I was growing up.

That is so heartbreaking! Big, big hugs to you!! I’m so sorry you went through such awful things. No wonder you’re still angry. Things like that are absolutely cruel beyond words, yet narcissistic mothers think nothing of it. Amazing isn’t it? Even more amazing is if you show you’re upset, they act like something is wrong with you. Pure evil, these people!

Well, she was pretty good at sewing. (DUH never put that together with the fashion designing until just this second DUH.) She made Barbie clothes back in the day that, in retrospect, were works of art.

She was also quite good at knitting, crochet, and other needlework, things that just NEVER spoke to me and at which I was of course not great.

It didn’t matter: What I liked that she didn’t was ridiculed. What I liked that she DID was sabotaged.

I now believe she resented the fact that I was healthy (she had a mild case of polio that didn’t slow her down until she got heavy); that I was clearly, obviously, and in every way the apple of my Grandfather’s (her father’s) eye; and that I inherited not her and my Grandmother’s mesomorphic physique but rather Grandpa’s ectomorphic one, which was almost certainly the entire reason I was force fed during my school days.

So that’s what was “wrong” with your pursuits- they weren’t the same ones she enjoyed. Well, how dare you have your own interests! lol That’s such a shame- you’d think being rather creative & artistic herself, she’d appreciate what you did even if she had no skills in those areas. Even from a narcissistic perspective, she could claim you had such interests because you got the artistic skills from her.

Also explains a lot regarding your health & body type. Looks are of the utmost importance to narcissists & when their child doesn’t look like them, it’s a huge slap in the face. I look nothing like anyone in my mother’s family- I’m all Bailey- & my mother seems to have taken it as a personal insult. I guess I was sitting there while she was pregnant, trying to think of ways to tick her off? lol If only your mother could’ve force fed you into looking more like her, that would’ve given her so much narcissistic supply! Gads.. the way these people think! Makes your head swim doesn’t it?

She did force-feed me into fatness that was well established by the time I was nine and continued, to one degree or another, until about 2011 or 12, when I was fifty-two or three when, short version, I made up my mind to fix it and am now in literally the best shape of my life!

She effectively crippled HERSELF by getting so out of shape and heavy that, by the time she died of bladder cancer at 58, she was confined to a wheelchair.

During my lifetime she broke both her legs once and one leg twice; her elbow (?!); her BACK; and various toes various times.

Imagine the Narcissistic Ecstacy of the bedridden hospital patient, receiving phone calls, visitors, flowers, goodies, and cards; a bell to ring anytime they want anything; and breakfast, lunch, AND dinner in bed for days on end!

From my adolescence on, my mother blamed everything I ever did that she didn’t care for on what she described as “Your father’s hot Latin blood.” He was half-Colombian, which makes me “only” one-quarter but, like you, I am fiercely proud of that part of me. I really wish it had occurred to me before she died to point out that she had in fact MARRIED that hot Latin blood!

Geez… isn’t that lovely? Making her own child fat. Nice. These narcissistic mothers are something else, aren’t they? Mine got on me about my weight no matter how thin I was my entire life. I even went through eating disorders started at age 10 into my teens thanks to her cruelty, always saying how “fat” I was.

Ohhhh yes. Narcissists do love being sick- it gets so much attention & people have to wait on them.

LOL Isn’t that amazing?! They criticize their husband’s “hot Latin blood” or in my case, my father being “a dumb hillbilly” but seem to forget- they didn’t have to marry these men!

I call it the “rejection of any thought or idea that didn’t spring from the mind of the N” syndrome. And I’ve seen it applied to things that were both trivial, like having an extra key made (Really. She became furious with me for suggesting that she make an extra car key) and serious, such as seeking medical attention for chronic pain, heart conditions, etc. And God forbid that you should want to worship Him as you have chosen, live the way that you want, study what you want to study, pursue hobbies that interest you, or even choose your own spouse. These are all very threatening to a narcissists relentless, insatiable need for power and control over others. And it is especially devastating to children who have to be raised by these egotistical monsters.

My NM never accepted that I was trying to help her. She saw every idea that didn’t originate in her mind as a challenge to her authority. To her it was always a battle of wills that she had to win, even if she suffered inconvenience, health issues, or financial loss. Her will had to be dominant in every situation even if she was hurt by her poor decisions, and she made many. She never learned from her failures. Even my GCB admitted that she would never listen to suggestions no matter how useful they were to her.

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